Monthly Archives: October 2008

Mon 6th October 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Yahoo-Google Deal on Hold - Ad sharing deal postponed, but deal wouldn’t have immediate effect on domain names anyway. Over the weekend Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) announced a delay to their planned online advertising sharing agreement to give the U.S. government more time to review the deal. Although Google and Yahoo provide the bulk of pay-per-click revenue to domain name owners, this deal would have little impact on paid domain name parking in the short run. The pact ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
What a Economic Meltdown Means for Domain Names - As the Dow drops below 10,000, what is the future for domain names? Headlines like this one, on CNN.com, are meant to scare you. You need a strong stomach. A few months ago I had lunch with a business acquaintance who is in his forties. The stock market was continuing its slide and he said he would get out if the market dropped below 10,000. “It always seems to drop faster than it goes up,” he commented. At the time of writing, the DJIA is at 9,962. I just ... read more ...
Sat 4th October 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
Google-Yahoo Deal On Hold - Google has agreed to delay the start of a Web advertising partnership with Yahoo to give U.S. antitrust regulators more time to review the deal. Two weeks ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told The Associated Press he would not wait much beyond the intended Oct. 11 start date. But in a statement Friday, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company said that since it was still in talks with the Department of Justice, it has agreed to “a brief delay” in implementing the agreement while the discussions continue. On ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICA File’s Brief in Kentucky Domain Seizure Action - The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) filed a “friend of the court” brief yesterday on the Kentucky domain name seizure. ica-amicus-brief (Adobe Reader Required) The brief attacks the governor action on several grounds. First the Kentucky law which was cited by the state in taking the action relates to “Mechanical Gambling Devices” which domains simply are not under the state law’s definition. Second the brief attacks the ruling for referring to domain names as property.  The brief points ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Would You Turn Down $100K for a Domain You Might Lose? - An article in the Miami Herald yesterday talked about the story of Steve Thiele who registered the domains miccosukeetribeofindians.com, miccosukeetribeofindiansofflorida.com and a site named after tribe chairman Billy Cypress, billycypress.com. The Miccosukee tribe is major  tribe in Florida and own and operate a casino. According to the story when the tribe’s attorney contacted Mr. Thiele this week demanding the domain names, he said “””””‘I’m not looking to sell it, but you can ... read more ...
Fri 3rd October 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
Kentucky Domain Seizure Update: ICA Gets Involved - Today is the deadline set by the judge to file briefs in the Kentucky domain seizure action. Phil Corwin, legal counsel to the Internet Commerce Association (the “ICA”) was preparing to submit a brief on behalf of the ICA as a friend of the court.  As soon as we get a copy we will make it public to you. Also the ICA announced today that it will be participating in an emergency Summit on the State of Kentucky’s unprecedented, wrongful seizure of 141 Internet gambling Websites. Hosted ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Moniker.com Silent TRAFFIC Auction Scores Big: $960K - The silent auction from the TRAFFIC show held last week in New York just completed and the results are a whopper. In a week where the stock market has tanked, commodities sank and the everyone in the world is worried about their money, domains, once again proved to be a shinning light. The preliminary total is $960,000 highlighted by the sale of loto.com for $91,000 and wholesale.net at 88K. Results are subject to final verification. Interesting to note that this silent auction did more than the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Register.com Home Page is a Winner - Re-designed web site is simple. Competitors should take note. I had to make one of my infrequent visits to Register.com today to unlock a backordered domain for transfer. When I arrived at the home page I was greeted by a simple, yet bold home page: In a business where many companies believe “more is better”, Register.com is going for simplicity. You can’t miss the domain search box as it’s not shoved in between 50 promotions. The phone number is right ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Moniker Silent Auction Nets Another $900k - Moniker’s silent auction concluded yesterday with $900,000 in sales. You can raise the tally on Moniker’s TRAFFIC auction to about $4 million, thanks to another $900,000 in sales in the silent auction. Nearly 200 domains sold in the silent auction. loto.com $91,331 (Spanish for “Lotto”) wholesale.net $88,240 sparesorts.com $70,590 claudia.com $35,000 newyorkrestaurants.com $30,240 furnitureworld.com $29,420 bluecollar.com $28,750 650.com $27,000 auctions.net ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Bailout Pork (In Parked Domain Names) - Here are some of the sweetener’s the in the Senate’s bailout package. Whenever there’s something I want to discuss that can’t be tied to domain names, I just find parked domain names for some of the words. I felt sick last night after reading about the pork shoved into the $700 billion bailout package. Here are some of those items according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. Sec. 503. Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Top 5 Domain Name News Stories Sep 2008 - A look back at the past 30 days in domain news. As the world’s economies made headlines, the domain industry chugged along. Here are the top 5 news stories on Domain Name Wire for September, ranked by views. 1. Dell: “We’re F’d” – Dell is either creating a new line of highly interactive computers or is making defensive domain registrations. Within minutes of this article going up, the traffic from Dell HQ in Round Rock, Texas started hitting Domain Name ... read more ...
Thu 2nd October 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Canadian Domainer Association Launches - New association to further interests of Canadian domainers. A new domainer association is launching at the Domain Convergence conference in Niagara Falls next week. Domain Owners Association of Canada (DOAC) aims to protect and increase the value of its members’ domain names. Peter Maxymych, President of Emall.ca, is founding the organization. In a statement about the launch, Domain Convergence organizer Frank Michlick said, “We are looking forward to helping ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
People Are Still Buying Domain Names - Despite economic turmoil, I had one of my biggest sales months ever. Domain parking revenue is down. The world economy is on the brink. The Dow dropped another 350 points today. Yet for some reason, I had one of my top three months ever for domain sales in September. Those include sales at the Aftermarket.com auction and sales to someone trying to diversify his investment portfolio into domain names. The TRAFFIC auctions were fairly successful, too. Earlier today ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New Domain Name Aftermarket Launches - PremierDomains.com launches. Is there room for more domain aftermarkets? It seems like new domain name aftermarkets pop up every month. Most of them are just copycat sites with features similar to Afternic and Sedo. They don’t gain traction and linger in aftermarket wasteland. One new site caught my eye today – PremierDomains.com. The site inked a deal with NameMedia to syndicated Name Media’s AfternicDLS listings. This gives the site an instant inventory ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Hitfarm to Release Domain Parking Index - Index will provide greater transparency. Domain parking company Hitfarm will soon release the Reinvent Index, an index to track the parking performance of domains. The Reinvent Index will track the results of 200 categorized domains owned by the company’s parent Reinvent Technology. This will help domainers understand the ups and downs of the parking industry and get insight to how particular categories of domain names. Think of it like a the SP 500 stock index ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Does Microsoft Want to Buy Your Domain Name? - Here’s a hint that you’re dealing with Microsoft (or another big company). Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has snapped up more generic domain names, this time buying SearchPerks.com from a California man to promote its “search sweepstakes”. In May Microsoft bought Cashback.com, although it hasn’t promoted the domain for its cashback search program. Try as I might, I haven’t been able to get details about the CashBack.com deal nor the latest deal, despite interviewing ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DomainSponsor Speaks Common Sense - Domain parking company speaks out in favor of ad feed provider changes. In its latest newsletter to clients, DomainSponsor discusses changes at its ad provider (Google). As you may know, Google has been “cleaning up” the domain channel (Google’s words, not mine). This means focusing on quality traffic and cutting (or discounting) the rest. So far I’ve seen a lot of domain parking companies nod grudgingly about how this is necessary for the long term of ... read more ...
Wed 1st October 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
TRAFFIC Silent Auction Ends Tomorrow: Our Picks - The silent auction from the TRAFFIC show held by Moniker.com, will close tomorrow Thursday October 2nd. All bidding for the silent auction will be conducted by SnapNames.com All bidding will conclude at 3:15pm EST, 12:15PM PST, unless extended by the under the normal bidding rules of Snapnames.com You can download the full list of all the domains for this auction. Included in this list is over 2,000 domains that were not included in the live auction as well as all unsold live auction domains. Since ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Microsoft Launches SearchPerks.com - Microsoft launched a rewards promotion today called SearchPerks to lure Internet users away from Google. SearchPerks, which runs through April 15, is similar to airlines’ frequent flyer programs. Every time you use Live Search you earn points that can be redeemed for prizes like ringtones, Xbox games, and t-shirts. Rewarding consumers to search is one way Microsoft hopes it can increase search traffic. The company ran tests on SearchPerks and found that people were three times more likely to use ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Members of Calif. House Says Allow Google-Yahoo - Some members of the California delegation of the U.S. House of Representatives have warned regulators not to block a controversial advertising agreement between Google. and Yahoo. In a letter sent to the U.S. Department of Justice Friday, the California representatives wrote of their concern that any effort by the Justice Department to block the deal “could detrimentally affect the online advertising market and electronic commerce.” “If the DOJ blocks this agreement we fear that the threat ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Dotster Picks Up Domain Names from BestRegistrar.com - Deal provides new home for 5,400 domain names. Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has selected Dotster to receive of bulk transfer of domain names from de-accreditated domain registrar BestRegistrar.com. BesRegistrar.com had about 5,400 gTLD domain names that will be transferred to Dotster. The transfers do not include any extension to expiration term, so BestRegistrar clients should renew domains at Dotster. If a domain expires within ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Moniker Should Use Marketplace Pro Instead of SnapNames - Silent auctions make more sense on Moniker’s legacy platform. In late 2006 Moniker launched “Marketplace Pro”, the domain registrar’s answer to domain aftermarket sites. It used Marketplace Pro for its silent auctions as well. The platform wasn’t perfect, but made it easy to find domains and place bids. For the past few silent auctions Moniker has switched to SnapNames, which is owned by Moniker’s new parent company Oversee.net. SnapNames has the added ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How’s a Financial Climate for Domains? - A domain parking update from ParkQuick’s Leonard Holmes. by Leonard Holmes, ParkQuick There has been some debate on how the current banking and financial crisis is affecting the domain industry.  Whether or not this specific crisis affects domains, the general economic slow-down is definitely having an effect.  While $2,000,000 $3,000,000 did change hands in Moniker’s T.R.A.F.F.I.C. New York live domain auctions, this is down from $10,000,000 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afilias Accidentally Deletes .Info Domains from RGP - Registry for .info takes back domains mistakenly dropped. .Info registry Afilias accidentally deleted some of the domain names that were in the redemption grace period this past weekend. Some of the domains were snapped up by new registrants and from backorders, but those people had the domains rescinded. Afilias released the following statement to Domain Name Wire: “This weekend a limited number of names were inadvertantly released from RGP. Afilias has rescinded ... read more ...